Black Swan AKA "Let's rip off from a better film..."

[ShogunRua]

Black Swan (2010)-

A frigid, naive young ballerina gets the lead in a production of "Swan Lake", only she can't master the dark, sensual "black swan". As she loses herself in the role, and has to cope with Badgirl Ballerina Mila Kunis, Overbearing, Strict Mother, and Lecherous Asshole European Director, "psychological thrills" ensue.

I wanted to like this film, folks. I really fucking did.

I love fucked up fairy tales, disorientation, horror, everything. And I know most people watching "Black Swan" will piss themselves with how good and "terrifying" it is.

Here's the problem; it's the most predictable, routine film imaginable. Every smash cut, every horrifying vision in a mirror...it's so damn cliche, so easy to spot. "Black Swan" raises an awful lot of tension, but nowadays, that's so easy. All it uses are the same quick cuts, focus changes, and scary images of any two-bit, throwaway horror film.

And what about the pay-off? The goddamn punch line to it? Nothing...just the simplest, most banal ending. Lots of cheap horror movie tension and little else.

The whole time I was watching the clichefest, I was remembering a movie called "Perfect Blue". It has virtually the exact same premise, and it's a cheap animated movie from the late 90s, not a star-studded Hollywood $13 million picture with a score by Clint Mansell.

But everything that "Black Swan" failed at, "Perfect Blue" succeeded in. Just do yourself a favor and watch the latter from start to finish. I even included a download link.

And you know what? It turns out that Darren Aronofsky had bought the US rights to "Perfect Blue" to avoid getting sued for "Black Swan". My intuition was right. But of course, not even a word of thanks was given to Satoshi Kon, who died tragically in 2010 of cancer at the age of just 46.

50/100

[td888]

I liked Black Swan. I didn't know much about the premise other than that is was a movie about dancers (not my favorite subject). So I was pretty much impressed by the movie, but that's also because I used to be pretty well known with the scene. I had some dancers as friends and their world can be pretty fucked up. This film brought back some memories I was glad I forgot. But I can enjoy a movie which can evoke emotions which you don't expect to get watching a film.

Thanks for the other film - Perfect Blue. I'll try to watch it this week.

[MmzHrrdb]

It seems that we might have to grow used to watching people describe as masterful and brilliant movies whose primary achievements are to rip-off older, better films. Black Swan might be the most banal so far -- though Avatar rivals it. I haven't seen Perfect Blue, but Black Swan is suspiciously similar in style, tone, structure and theme to several superior films, with Suspiria, Showgirls and The Company being the most notable and embarrassing. Even then, its jump-scare tactics are no more dignified than the average J-horror remake.

Throw in some particularly bad psycho-acting (is Portman's flat performance considered Oscar-worthy by virtue of being set against Barbara Hershey's, which is the worst I've seen in a long time?), lurid lesbianism, mind-numbing plot twists, apparent misogyny and a typically overwrought ending; what you have is the most obvious, bloated and praise-baiting movie imaginable. You're right in describing it as a "clichefest." In fact, Aronofsky seems bent on first taking those aforementioned movies, stripping them of what made them at least partially enticing, and then doling out a film of contrasting (though well-produced) blandness. Ed Gonzalez (http://slantmagazine.com/film/review/black-swan/5174) makes some good points to this effect.

I can't see any tangible reason for this film being so heavily praised other than for its willingness to pander to audience expectations and the presence of recognizable names. There appears to be no apparent point to it (another way in which it is inferior to The Company), the performances by the actors do nothing other than fulfill the basic brief (Mila Kunis raises her eyebrow and looks alluring, critics go wild!), the plot is devoid of any surprise or originality, the characters are ludicrously one-note, the direction (as you Shogun note) is routine, and the amount of repetition throughout is just plain irritating.

It's a film seemingly conceptualized with no intent other than to rip off movies that it's target market presumably hadn't seen (Perfect Blue, The Company, Suspiria) or didn't care to remember (Showgirls), with the core goal being an Oscar nod. The fact that Black Swan mostly failed to achieve it's core goal is the best thing about it.

[cameron326]

I think some of the general criticism of Black Swan is a bit over the top. Sure, I think the film is a bit overrated in some quarters, but I think Black Swan, like Requiem for a Dream, was created to appeal to a mass audience, and for its ideas and themes to be fairly transparent and universally understood (compared to say Mulholland Drive). I don't consider Black Swan a masterpiece by any means, but it was an entertaining piece of pop art. The themes and set up we've seen before. Moreover there was a lot of melodrama and cliche, but it was beautifully and suspensefully shot.

And at $14 million, I think Black Swan was hardly expensive. Look at the almost universally praised Inception - a rather dull film lacking in atmosphere that seems utterly unconvinced by its own premise/logic. And despite a whopping $160million budget, in my opinion it lacks a single scene that is particularly emotionally or visually arresting. If someone says "Inception" I think "clever movie, dreams within dreams etc" But not one image (the Paris folding thing was just a cool gimmick), line of dialogue, or moment spring to mind. For me, Black Swan delivered plenty of those high points - and for 10% of the budget of something like Inception. But that's just my subjective experience of the film and I guess thats why we all rate films differently.

[Lady Moe]

I love both Perfect Blue and Black Swan

[Alon Reter]

Everything you said about Black Swan is correct. And it's also what made me love it. it's just so shamelessly cliche, manipulative and trashy. All of that eventually becomes such an intense tornado of pop culture wannabe-womplicated banality that it really is terrfying.

[ZayanK]

Satoshi Kon is dead

Anyway, my biggest criticism towards Black Swan is tha it's exactly the same damn movie as any other previous Aronofsky.

[Devious One]

I had this same feeling with Avatar and Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe".

[metalhorse]

Aronofsky bought the rights to Perfect Blue because he wanted to visually quote the bathtub scene in Perfect Blue in Requiem for a Dream, which he did, shot for shot.